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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22407850">The Pride of Nabatea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWritingSquid/pseuds/TheWritingSquid'>TheWritingSquid</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Only Thorns Left [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Family Feels, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Silver Snow Route Spoilers, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:01:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>649</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22407850</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWritingSquid/pseuds/TheWritingSquid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>[Silver Snow Route Spoiler in Summary]<br/>Seteth visits his wife’s grave on the Coast of Rhodos, weary from the world’s pain, his position as one of the last Nabateans, and his part in ending Seiros’s life at the monastery.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Flayn &amp; Seteth (Fire Emblem), Seteth &amp; Rhea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Only Thorns Left [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1476446</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Pride of Nabatea</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Based on Seteth's lines when you attack Rhea with him at the end of Silver Snow. Tweaked canon a bit for dramatic flair, as one does.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Seteth inhales deeply, allowing the smells of the sea to fill his nostrils and obliterate all others. He has always loved the pungent scent of low tides and the taste of salt on the wind, the way it seems to overcome everything and leads him to a place of peace, but over the last year, he has needed it more than ever. Here, his toes curling in the sand by his wife's grave, he can forget the stinging scent of smoke as the monastery burns, the unique coppery smell of green blood as it poured out of Seiros and upon him, and the unbearable decay of her burning form as it shifted from immaculate white to ash-grey.</p><p>The Professor had created an opening, and he had stepped in, hands tight on the grip of the Lance of Assal, plunging its tip into an existing soft spot only he knew existed--a scar of torn scales left by Nemesis himself, in that fateful battle on the Tailtean Plains.</p><p><em>"I will carry the pride of Nabatea,"  </em>he had promised--but could he truly, he who had killed one of their own, bringing the Agarthians’ genocide one step closer to fruition?</p><p>There had been no choice, he knows this in his mind. Seiros had lost control, her powers drained by her sacrifice at Shambhala, and she would have wreaked havoc upon the world. Yet his heart cannot think of the human lives saved, only of the Nabatean one lost. So few of them remain--and of those, Indech and Macuil have entirely retired from the world of men. The memories of the massacre at Zanado… only Seiros carried those.</p><p>The pride of Nabatea. An empty promise from a tired man who has long since lost his ability to shift. Seteth can still feel the earth, solid beneath his feet, and he remembers the fondness with which he buried into it--how sand and rock alike had felt like home against his scales. He misses it more and more with every passing day, the longing settling into him like layers of sediment slowly filling a lake.</p><p>He is… weary. Weary of this world, which has given him countless massacres and war, which has seen him raise his lance against humans they had spent centuries guiding and students he had grown so fond of, which has forced his hand and made him kill his sister. He’s old, older than anyone else alive now, and here by the sea, he cannot help but wonder when he will finally have earned his reprieve.</p><p>Seteth closes his eyes and sets his fingers against the cool stone of the holy shrine, breathing in the sea, searching desperately for that sense of peace and purpose which normally spurs him on. The soft melody of waves fills his ears, the wind catches in his air, and still he struggles to see the point.</p><p>“Father!”</p><p>Flayn’s joyful voice carries across the waves, from the beach’s side, and he opens his eyes. She stands a foot into the water, waving at him from the shore, a large bouquet of forget-me-nots in one hand and his old fishing road in the other. Her radiant smile lodges itself in his heart, filling his chest with warmth and washing his melancholy away.</p><p>“Do you wish for fish, Flayn?” he asks, his own lips tugging upward as she runs through the shallow waters, toward the small islet only accessible at low tides.</p><p>Perhaps… Perhaps this is enough, for now, he thinks--enough to fish by the sea with his daughter, the woes of the world temporarily set aside as he casts his line and waits for the telltale bite and a catch to make her happy for days. He has family still, the most precious gift of all, and no war, no matter how cruel, can ever dim the light that Flayn casts upon his life.</p>
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